The Life of David Gale

The Life of David Gale (2003) opens with a philosophy professor who campaigned against capital punishment sitting on death row himself. Four days before his execution he agrees to talk to a journalist and starts telling his story. It was Alan Parker's last film. He had previously made Mississippi Burning, Midnight Express and Angela's Ashes. Kevin Spacey plays Gale, Kate Winslet the journalist, and Laura Linney his colleague from the campaign. The film's problem is its own argument. It wants to make a case against the death penalty and can only do so through a twist in the last act, and once that twist is granted, the case only holds inside that invented scenario. Roger Ebert gave it zero stars for precisely this reason: the film undermines the cause it argues for. It runs 130 minutes. Good for: arguments about capital punishment, twist driven narratives, and Spacey and Winslet. Less good for: the turn at the end strains belief, and the entire moral weight of the film rests on it. The characters make decisions in service of the plot, and Winslet's journalist behaves nothing like one.